Gus Poyet has no intention of resigning as Sunderland's manager but it appears Ellis Short may have to either back him or sack him this summer.

Poyet will present Sunderland's owner with a blueprint for root and branch reform at a club where the Uruguayan has identified "something is wrong".

It promises to prove a watershed. "You can describe that meeting as 'make it or break it'," Poyet said. "But at every club, you have a meeting at the end of the season. You put across your situation and they put across their situation. Then you discuss things. That doesn't mean you don't want to be here or you're going against the club. I'm just trying to get the best situation for Sunderland – but also for me.

"If I can get certain things in place and certain standards, then I know I'm going to be able to do my job better. For those standards to be there you need a certain group of players with a certain mentality."

With bottom place Sunderland, who visit Manchester City on Wednesday, almost certainly consigned to relegation, Poyet is so convinced of the need for a radical overhaul he is prepared to risk dismissal. "I'm not better or worse than anyone," he said. "But I'm different. It would be very easy for many people to just shut up and get on with the job. And then wait to get sacked. I don't do that. I don't wait to get the sack – and that doesn't mean that you're pushing for it either. I don't want to get the sack. I hate getting the sack, the feeling's terrible. But the idea is to put things right and I'd rather push to make things better than accept them as they are."

Rumours that Poyet had walked out swept social media on Monday but the first he knew of it was when his son telephoned. "He asked 'did you leave?' and I didn't know what he meant. Had I left a restaurant? Had I left home? Why are people expecting me to walk out? I don't know why people have that impression of me.

"If I thought it was time to resign, or I wanted to resign then I would resign, but the situation here has never reached that point. I find myself in a situation I don't like but I'm looking for a solution.

"I'm coming from a place where to resign is natural, because you kind of tell the club 'maybe it's me that's the problem' and people would accept that naturally. But I've learnt that here that would be looked at as quitting. And I'm not going to quit. Simple. That I can promise you."

Much may hinge on this summer's recruitment strategy but he is confident he can work with Lee Congerton, Sunderland's new director of football. "I'm not even bothered for one second about my relations with Lee or the players we're going to try to bring in here," Poyet said.

He seems more concerned with embracing wider autonomy and, possibly, an alternative job title. "What's different here between playing for the first team and the under-21s?," he said. "Hardly anything. The dressing room's the same, as is the bus, the kit, the pitch, the footballs and the swimming pool.

"The change when you become a first-teamer is very small. I'd like to make it a little bit bigger. That doesn't say you're going to give the young players rubbish but it should be different. At the moment I'm the head coach, not the manager so it's not my responsibility."

Poyet also believes there must be an acceptance of the limitations imposed by Sunderland's geographical position. "We need to be honest," he said. "You get less in the north than in London. Sometimes it's not that easy to convince people to come here, maybe sometimes you have to pay them a bit more. Sometimes that goes against you."

Honesty is his motto, it seems. "It's very easy to lie," he said. "I can agree with everybody and the club's going to be in the same situation next year, either with me or someone else."